Another day, another classic caught using my trusty dash-cam. This time it has a distant relation to the current family car, a 2016 Opel Astra.

Not only is it an Opel, it’s the five door Ascona, same as mine. Although it must be said, they weren’t called Hatchbacks in their day- that was reserved for the Kadett E, the true forefather of the Astra. And yes, I know the Ascona is a class above the Astra and its modern descendant is the Opel Insignia (the new, recently introduced model is called Gran Sport but is really a five door- just like this Ascona).

But as it is, I’ll take what I can get:

Amazing to witness how much cars have grown. My Astra- again, a class below- is bigger in every way than this Ascona, not to mention the creature comforts or performance. But that’s nothing compared to the new Insignia, which is huge by comparison.

You may be able to tell from the video this is, shall we say, a less than restored example of once a very popular car in Israel. Almost all have vanished- even the Corsa A survived much better, as outlined in this post. Which makes it even more remarkable that I happen to stumble upon this very car and even take a photo of it some time ago:

For an un-restored car, it looks remarkably well. Obviously, it has issues but it’s also apparent that it’s being cared for, which is a good thing. As I said, almost none survived in Israel. Here’s another, 1987 Ascona I photographed in a classic meeting. Also a five door, this looks much better:

The white car has the last style of grille used on the final facelift for their run-out year 1987-8.
You’re quite right about the size creep, with the current Astra much bigger than this generation Ascona/Cavalier. According to the Wikipedia entry the Ascona had started off as a replacement Kadett – this kind of makes sense as the Ascona A is very close in size to the Vauxhall Viva HB/HC which had replaced the Kadett A based Viva HA in 1866. Like the Ascona B, the Viva HD was planned to be larger still, but was cancelled in favour of the Ascona B based Cavalier. To fill the increasing gap below, Vauxhall were looking at what they called the S car programme to develop a new smaller model, which was eventually merged in with the Kadett C/Chevette development.
Small car models have to keep being invented. The Corsa is closer to the size of the older Astra/Kadetts while the ‘little’ Adam is slightly bigger than the first Corsa/Vauxhall Nova.

First, I assume you meant 1966. The 1866 model was either a pump, a marine engine or a crane (yes, Vauxhall is that old):)

Totally in agreement about size creep. My current Mazda 3 is positively huge standing next to an older 626. And the Opel/Vauxhall Insignia would have been regarded as a full size car in 1992’s Europe. I understand the current Astra bucks the trend somewhat but again, it’s not SMALL. I often question myself whether this is really what the market wants or needs.

In the ending of 80’s my father had an Ascona based Chevrolet Monza exactly in that metallic lead-gray of the picture. It was a 1985 1.8 carburated running on ethanol and in the southern winter of Brazil around 2ºC / 35F any GM with ethanol just does not turn on before a good running pulling it downhill until it turn on by force. Me and my father did it many times with my mother guiding the car in the morning… After that my father still got another Monza, a 3-box with 2 doors, this one with the same morning laziness. They sorta left good memories, but not enough for longing them.

I drove a couple of these back in the day (as a Vauxhall Cavalier)and they were somewhat of a revelation compared to the other junk I was driving at the time. They had a really competent “modern car” feel, great on motorways and confidence-inspiring on the back roads. My friend had an SRi that was fast, comfortable and affordable. Sold like hotcakes iirc.

They were indeed everywhere on the UK’s roads back then. Some tended to look down on them as the proverbial “company car” but they deserved the success. Good handlers, comfortable and cheap and easy to maintain. The SRi 130 would not embarrass itself on modern roads: 0-60 at 8.1 secs and top speed of 122mph are not bad even today.

We got the Holden Camira instead which shared more than a few parts with the European J-cars (i.e. Ancona and Cavalier). We may laugh at Camiras now but, for their time, they were nice looking machines – better looking than the Euro J’s imho. No hatchback though (as pointed out by Pete). We gave the Europeans our Australian made wagon body shell instead. And they rusted out there almost immediately…

Yes, a key strength of the European J cars was their powertrains. Also bear in mind that through the 70’s and 80’s, automatic trannies, in this market sector, were very much a minority choice in Europe. Most drivers chose the performance and fuel efficiency of 5 speed MT’s. Come to that, many still do.

In the UK, Cavaliers, with their smooth, punchy OHC engines and high 5th gears, were a fixture in the fast lanes of our lightly policed motorways. Even the 1.6, with 90 real (DIN) bhp, could be, and was, cruised all day with the needle in the 90’s, particularly if it wasn’t your car !

The 1.8i raised the stakes to 115 bhp, and then came the 2.0i with 130 bhp and eventually, in 16v form, with 156 bhp, though this was really too much for the chassis, except in a straight line.

In fact, in the UK, this 16 valve ‘Red Top’ engine (for the colour of its cam covers) is still sought after by DIY speed fiends, both for easing into other Vauxhalls, and for transplanting into smallish RWD cars like Escorts and Sunbeams, for special stage rallying at club level, where such swaps are legal.